Water Tub Garden
How to Create a Water Tub Garden
We bought our wash tub at Cottage Growers in Petaluma. I filled it 1/3 full of heavy clay soil (this
helps to stabilize the temperature, but afternoon shade is a good idea). Then I just planted it with one tall
plant, one medium plant, one whose leaves float at the surface, and one that stays underwater, trying to
have 1/3 area covered by floating/emergent vegetation and 2/3 with underwater leaves. I also put in a dead
manzanita branch which the birds and dragonflies both use as a perch.
A half barrel would also work for a small pond.
Here are some plant ideas:
upright - miniature cattail, horsetail, water calla, flag, arrowhead, cardinal flower, Indian rhubarb,
blue pickerelweed, water plantain
medium emergent - marestail, creeping water primrose
floating emergent - pennywort (the 4-leaf clover put out an oil and didn't work after all)
underwater - anything from the list linked to
on my main pond page
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